This Lock is More Broken than My Heart

“Quick, we don't have time,” Victoria says, looking over her shoulder.

“Chill. I already told you, he's with my brother, and when those two are together, they lose all sense of time.” I bring the key out of the hole, stick it back in, turn, still nothing.

“You also said they'll be returning here before midnight,” she checks her phone, “it's 11:27.”

“They're going to spend time looking for his key, calm down, we have time.” Key out. Key in. Turn. Shit.

“Whatever. Just hurry up.” She looks behind her. “I don't feel good about this.”

“Can you stop doing that?”

“What?”

“Looking everywhere. It's distracting.”

“I'm only trying to make sure we don't get caught but of course, you don't appreciate anything.”

“No one's going to catch us. I padlocked the gate, the fence is high and we're both wearing black for extra measure. Plus there's a small gate at the back of the house that you can cross over, it's your way out in case anything happens.”

“I don't even know why I'm here. Why the heck did I agree to this?”

Key out. Key in. Turn. Turn. Push. Urrggghh!

“You better don't back out now. Besides, we wouldn't even be here if you were just a loyal friend.”

“Oh really? Really? Well, maybe I would be a ‘loyal friend’ if you weren't such a shit friend.”

“Whatever. We're not going to talk about that here, it's all past now, anyway.”

“You were the one who brought it up.”

“I don't know why this stupid door won't just open.” Push. Push. Turn. Turn. Push.

“Maybe it's the wrong key.”

“This is obviously the key. It's going in, it's the lock that has a problem.” I sigh. “I don't know what my brother is doing dating someone who's too cheap to repair his lock anyway.”

“God, you're too quick to judge. You don't even know if it just started having issues.” Turn. “You know, maybe this is a sign that you shouldn't be doing this. Let's just leave it alone and leave here. You can lie to him that you found his key somewhere on the floor and we can pretend we were never here.” Turn.

“No way that's going to happen. I'm not going to come this far for nothing. I've been planning this thing for weeks now.” Push.

“Instead of having to do all of this, why don't you just talk to your brother about how you're feeling?”

“Oh, like I talked to you?”

Victoria raises her voice now, “Yeah! Like you didn't talk to me. It's the same thing you're doing now, going around taking stupid drastic measures without even trying to communicate like a normal person!” Push.

“Tell me,” key out, “what ‘stupid drastic measures’ did I take with you? I was just there, on my own, doing nothing out of the ordinary, when all of a sudden you start prancing around with your stupid friend Priscilla.” Key in.

“Okay now don't bring Priscilla into this, she has nothing to do with it, and definitely don't call her stupid.”

“Oh I'm sorry to disrespect your lovely bestie Priscilla, and she has everything to do with this. She was the one you ran to afterall.”

“I didn't run to anyone. And have you even thought of the fact that maybe it's you? Maybe you were the one who pushed me away?”

Turn. “Look, this really isn't the time to talk about this, we're here for something else.”

“Then why do you keep bringing it up! Stop bringing it up if you know you don't want to talk about it!”

Turn. Key out. “Do you have a screwdriver or something? I'm starting to think I need a whole new method.”

“Yes of course, use a screwdriver and make this look like a break-in. Maybe if you have a hairpin, you can try that hairpin thing people do in the movies.”

“Vic, in the fifteen years we've been—we were—friends, have you ever known me to be able to use a hairpin to open a lock?”

She shrugs, “I don't know, it's been months, you may have learnt new skills.”

The only new skill I've learnt since December is seeming like I'm fine when I'm absolutely not, and even that isn't a new skill, I just got much better, but of course I won't say this to her, so I say, “I've been too busy for that.” Key in.

“Hmm…busy doing what?” Turn.

“Why do you care?”

“I don't, I'm just curious.” Turn.

“Well, it's not your business. What I do with my life is none of your business and what you do with yours is none of mine.”

“I wonder what would happen to you if you stopped being so passive aggressive. Maybe you'll stop functioning?”

“I don't know, maybe.” Turn. “Just like you'll probably stop functioning if you stopped criticizing everything. I mean, everything I do. I bet you don't criticize Priscilla. No, I'm sure you don't, 'cause she's, like, perfect. The ideal friend. Not like me, the Lady with Many Faults. So much so that her best friend has to run away.” Turn. “Just run away like that, all of a sudden, like a typical coward.” Push.

“You know what? I won't even give in this time. If you want to talk about it, go. If you don't want to, then stop with the theatrics. Some things just never change, God.” Push. Turn.

“You know,” Vic starts and I'm in agony, I don't want a stupid lecture, “maybe I should find you that screwdriver. So the guy and your brother will know someone broke into his house and all of this was planned. That way, you'll fail in your mission and they remain in a happy relationship.”

I pull the key out of the hole, drop my hands, face her, “I don't trust you. You seem so against this, it's like you really don't want me to succeed. How am I sure you're not about to pull another traitor move?”

She laughs. “I'm not pulling anything. It's just that what you're doing is really messed up. Your own brother for crying out loud.”

“Oh please, Ms. Righteous. You're doing this too, you're going to have as much hand in this as I am. And don't forget, my brother that we're doing this ‘really messed up’ thing to was also quite close to you.”

“Yeah but he wasn't my brother. Besides I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't really need the money.”

“That doesn't absolve you.”

“I'm not saying it does. See, let's just do this thing quick if we're doing it and if we aren't, let's get out of here.”

“I thought you really needed the money. Let me see it.”

“What?”

“The merchandise, let me see it. Let me see that you're following through with the plan.”

“Jesus, you've definitely gone crazy.” She brings out pieces of clothing from her pocket and throws them at me. I pick them up. A G-string and a tiny lace bra, both red, a set that I recognized.

“You've seen now? You're satisfied?”

I throw them back at her.

“Wait, what if he manages to convince your brother that he doesn't know how it got there?”

“There's used women's underwear in his bedroom and he lives alone, that's going to take a lot of convincing. But just in case, I have an unused SIM card. I'll send him a text from there as the woman, telling him I left my underwear at his place. My brother hates being disrespected and even more taken for a fool, so that'd definitely do it.” I might never forgive myself and will leave with the guilt and the fear of him finding out for the rest of my life but hey, at least I won't be lonely.

“What if your brother doesn't see the text?”

“I'll send it when I'm with them and I know my brother is with his phone.”

“God, I can't believe you. And why can't you use your underwear? It's not like they'll recognize it.”

“I can't take risks.”

“Whatever. Just assure me that if your brother somehow finds out it was me, you'd help me mitigate how much he'd hate me.” 

Push. “And why would I do that? I'm still trying to get him to see you as an enemy, he never stopped trying to look for excuses for your snake behavior.”

“Awwn.” Push. “You know you're only discouraging me even further from doing this. Your brother is literally the sweetest human being, you're such an evil person.” Turn.

“Yeah I'm aware.” Push.

“God, I feel really bad. You really don't know how bad I feel.”

I take a break from the lock, turn to her. “Then why did you accept to do this? If you knew you were going to just come here and make me feel even more guilty than I already do, why did you come? Don't you think I already feel guilty enough? My brother is the most important person to me in the entire world, do you think I don't hate myself right now?”

“So why then are you doing this?”

“Well, Victoria, there are worse things to feel than guilt and hate. And I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have to. Don't worry, my brother will be fine eventually. People break up all the time. They've only been together three months, he'll get over it. It might not even take long; look how little time it took you, for example, to get over a fifteen year relationship. What's three months in comparison to fifteen years?”

“You know, it wasn't necessary to bring that into it. Do you want to talk about our breakup? Look, if you want to talk about it, that's fine—”

“Let's get this damn door open, we don't have much time left.” Key in. Turn. Push.

“Of course now you know we don't have time.” Push. “God, I'm so tired. I've been standing here holding this torch for like 30 minutes. My legs ache, my hands ache.” Turn.

“Sorry about that. I know Priscilla wouldn't put you through this type of torture.” Push.

She groans, “you know what?” Her voice is raised, “Yes! Yes, Priscilla wouldn't put me through this. Priscilla wouldn't sabotage her brother's lovely relationship for selfish reasons. Priscilla communicates. She communicates her feelings like you're supposed to do in a healthy relationship, and encourages me to communicate mine too!” Turn. “She's understanding, she doesn't demand too much from me. Our friendship isn't physically, emotionally, mentally, draining.” Turn. “She always does her best to be there for me, she's present, and she's at a really good place in her life, so it's easy to be friends with her.” Key out. “This is what you want to hear, isn't it? She's an amazing person and a great friend. But I don't have half as much fun with her as I did with you. She doesn't get me like you did, we don't have that telepathic connection, she doesn't see through me, sometimes I feel like she doesn't even really know me. She's a good girl, I doubt she'll ever, no matter how close we get, commit murder for me, or be my accomplice to arson, or come and help me bury a body if I call her up by 3AM.” Key in. “We haven't been through fifteen crazy, difficult, years together.” Turn. Her voice comes down now, “Priscilla's wonderful, but she's not you.” Then softly, almost a whisper, “I miss you.” Her voice raises again all of a sudden, almost aggressive, “Is that what you want to hear? I miss you! I miss you, okay? And I wouldn't have gotten so close to Priscilla if you didn't push me away!”

Key out. Key in. Turn. Turn. Push. Nothing.

“Of course, you don't say anything.” She sighs. Turn. “I'm so tired, this is where we have a problem. I let out all these feelings and you don't even say anything. You don't even care. You don't care about anything, it's all just you and your agenda.”

”I don't care?” Turn. “I don't care?” Turn. It's my turn to raise my voice. “Do you think you're the only one I know who owns sexy underwear? Or you think you're the only one I know who can hold a torch?” Push. “I could have used anyone!” Turn. Push. “Don't you think it would have been easier, safer, for me to use someone who doesn't know my brother? Someone who can't easily rat me out?” Hard push. Harder push. “I had much better options, but I chose you!” Push. “Why do you think?” Push. “I don't care? Look at me! I'm trying to ruin my brother's relationship just so he can have more time for me, so he can give me more attention, trying to take this away from him because it kills me to see happiness so near me every single day and know that I can't have it. Does that look like someone who doesn't care? Tell me!” Push. Push. Push Push. “Come on, tell me!” Push. Push. Push. Push. Push. 

“Easy. Charity, easy. You're hitting too hard, you're going to break the door or hurt yourself, stop.” Push. Push. Push. “Charity, stop, you'll hurt yourself.” Push. “Charity, take it easy, calm down. Charity.” I feel her hands on my arm, she pulls me away from the door, pulls me to face her. The tears start coming out, from my eyes, my mouth, and I'm trying to stop it but I can't.

“Aww Charity.” She puts her arms around me, and I stop resisting, my chin goes to her shoulder and I let it out there. I wonder for how long I've needed this.

We're like that for like five minutes, and when my tears stop, we sit on the floor beside each other.

“Okay Miss Charity,” Victoria says, “why did you pick me?”

“Really? See this is why I get so annoyed. Normally, you wouldn't need to ask me this question. You should know already, you usually don't need me to spell things out.”

“Well, I want you to spell it out. I'm not dumb, of course I've already figured it out but sometimes you need to actually say things. You have to learn how to say things.” 

“Okay, fine. I thought I could use this to spend a little time with you. It's been a while since we did something mischievous together. Or anything at all.”

“See? That wasn't so hard.”

“Says who?”

“You know,” she chuckles, “it was pretty funny when you called my lingerie ‘merchandise’. I was annoyed then but it still took something in me not to laugh.”

“You should have laughed. It would have saved us some drama.”

“How?”

“I would have realized you still cared about me, and that would have done a lot, I'm telling you.”

“Jesus, Charity, how could you think that I stopped caring about you? I could never, even if I tried.”

“I don't even know anything anymore. All my life, I've had only you and my brother, and just when you leave me for someone else, he finds himself a boyfriend, and I'm just alone, feeling like everyone's running away from me. I just really feel like shit. I've always felt like shit, but you guys have been there, but now I feel like shit on my own, I feel like I have no one. You know, I spent the first hour of the new year bawling in my bedroom,” I chuckle, like there was anything funny about my sheer misery on that bed, “I felt so lonely; my brother was here with Daniel, and you, I saw your Instagram story, you were having fun with Priscilla, and it all just felt so fucking awful.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I spent most of that time thinking about you, 'cause I knew it should have been both of us, like it always is—was.”

“How about next year?”

“Charity, we have stuff to fix, things have to change if we want this to work.”

“I know but, do you want it to? I still don't know if you're even willing to come back or not. You say you miss me doesn't mean you want me back into your life.”

“Of course I do. But like I said, some things have to change. I know I should have said this much earlier but, I felt like my feelings were neglected a lot in our friendship, especially during the last couple of years, and you wanted so much more emotionally from me than I could give.”

“Yeah, I'm sorry, but can we do this later? This isn't really the place and time for this.”

“Oh, right.” She laughs, “I completely forgot we were here. And why we even are. Do you still want to go on with this? You better say no, I don't care about the money.”

“Right now, I just want to go home.”

“Better.”

I start to stand up. “Oh and by the way, I wouldn't help you bury someone by 3AM. I need my beauty sleep.”

She gets up too. “That's what you'll say until I hit you up and five minutes later, you're beside me digging a grave.”

I'm about to respond when a light shines in my eyes from the direction of the gate. How did neither of us hear it open? Daniel's voice, “who's there? Who is it?” My heart is beating so fast, I can't make even the smallest move. I hear my brother, “Charity. Charity, is that you? And who's the other person?” Shit. 

They haven't seen Victoria, so I expect her to have sneaked away to the back, but I see a hand come in front of me, like it's blocking something, I hear, “It's me, Victoria, and we can explain.”

And you know, maybe my beauty sleep can wait.